Veranstaltungsformat: In-person
Cross-Border Commuting, Gender Differences, and the Outside Option
We study a cross-border commuting reform that granted German workers in the German-Swiss border region access to the high-wage Swiss labour market. This exogenous increase in German workers‘ outside option led to an increase in average wages paid by German establishments in the border region. But this wage increase is not homogenous across worker types. First, high-skilled workers enjoyed a higher wage increase than low-skilled workers, consistent with a stronger increase in Swiss-labor demand for high-skilled German workers. Second, the positive wage effects only accrue to men in the border region, but not women, consistent with gender differences in the willingness to commute. The outside option clearly seems to play an important role in wage negotiations and its wage effects can be heterogeneous.
European Meeting of the International Microsimulation Association 2022
The conference is open to all areas of microsimulation, including static and dynamic microsimulation, agent-based models, behavioural models, and all applied and methodological contributions related to microsimulation. Moreover, there will also be thematic streams during the conference (organised together with partners in brackets):
- Labour markets and welfare policies (Dr. Kerstin Bruckmeier, Institute for Employment Research IAB)
- Comparative analysis on taxes and benefits (Salvador Barrios, PhD, Joint Research Centre, European Commission)
- Dynamic microsimulation (Prof. Ralf Münnich, MikroSim FOR2559)
- Health (Ieva Skarda, PhD, Centre for Health Economics at the University of York)
- Agriculture and environment (Prof. Cathal O’Donoghue, National University of Ireland, Galway; University of Maastricht)
TASKS VI: The Digital and Ecological Transformation of the Labour Market
Digital technologies can be both labour-saving and labour-augmenting, thereby changing the division of labour between humans and machines. While an increasing range of tasks can be automated, new tasks arise at the same time. This digital transformation is likely to interact with the ecological transformation towards a climate-friendly economy, both of which will shape the future of work. On top of that, the Covid-19 pandemic induced fast changes in the organisation and location of work. The aim of this conference is to bring together economists, sociologists and researchers from related fields to discuss frontier research on labour market effects of processes associated with the digital and ecological transformation. Special focus lies on the following questions:
- How does the division of tasks between workers and machines develop?
- Do green jobs differ from non-green jobs in terms of skills and human capital?
- How does the digital and ecological transformation affect labour market, firm and individual outcomes?
- How do job contents and tasks evolve and how do workers adapt?
- What is the role of education and training in preparing the workforce for new knowledge and skills requirements?
- How does the Covid-19 pandemic affect both types of transformations? And what does the pandemic reveal about the interactions between gender, education, work requirements and tasks?
- How can policy cushion potential negative outcomes r
The German Labor Market in a Globalized World: Trade, Technology, and Demographics
The conference focuses on technology, trade, and demographic changes and the ways they interact with employment, wages, and participation in the labor market, with a particular emphasis on the role of institutions and on labor markets during the COVID-19 crisis. Understanding these relationships is key in assessing the performance of the labor market and for the design of effective labor market policies. We invite empirical and theoretical contributions on these topics from all areas of economics and sociology with a focus on labor, education, health, or human resource management.
The conference will be held in-person. It is sponsored by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the Priority Program 1764 “The German Labor Market in a Globalized World” and will also mark the end of the program.
The Long-Run Effects of Soft Commitments and Reminders on Academic Performance
We study the long-run effects of soft commitments and reminders on academic performance. In a randomized field experiment, our first treatment consisted of sending students in a 7-semester bachelor's degree program reminders about the recommended study structure each semester. The second treatment group received the same reminders but in the first semester were on top offered the opportunity to commit to the recommended study structure with a non-binding agreement. After 5 years, we find that the reminders did not generate any effects on academic performance. The soft commitment device treatment on the other hand is highly effective: after 5 years, students in the commitment treatment are 14 percentage points more likely to have graduated, 9 percentage points less likely to have dropped out, and their time to graduation is 0.35 semesters shorter than that of the controls – while maintaining the same GPA as the controls.
Workshop “Vacancies, Hiring and Matching”
The Institute for Employment Research (IAB) is pleased to invite submissions for a workshop on “Vacancies, Hiring and Matching” in Nuremberg on October 1 and 2, 2019. In 2019, the IAB celebrates the 30th anniversary of the German Job Vacancy Survey, which has been collecting representative data
on vacancies and hiring processes since 1989. Given that the nature of employers’ vacancy posting
and hiring processes is an important, but still under-researched topic, the workshop’s objective is to
discuss recent developments in the following research areas:
- Empirical research based on employer-level and/or vacancy data (also online vacancy data)
- Macroeconomic work dealing with vacancies, labor market flows or the matching process
- Other empirical studies on labor demand and the hiring of workers
- Methodological work discussing employer-level data collection and/or the measurement of vacancies and labor flows
„Higher Education and the Labour Market“ (HELM)
Different Paths – Different Outcomes? Changes in the Acquisition of the Higher Education Entrance Qualification and Educational Pathways of Graduates
Today, the majority of the 18-19 year olds acquires a higher education entrance qualification. While most of them do so by obtaining a general secondary school certificate (e.g., Abitur, Matura, Baccalauréat, A-Levels), alternative paths to acquiring a higher education entrance qualification might apply. Moreover, cooperative education programmes integrating vocational and tertiary education (“Duales Studium”), which provide an alternative path to university studies and vocational training, have become increasingly popular.
How these changes shape education and career paths of students/degree holders is the focus topic of this year’s 2nd Forum „Higher Education and the Labour Market“. Of particular interest are papers focusing on the education and career paths of the new (non-traditional) student groups or analysing (and ideally comparing) students following the different educational tracks (university studies, vocational training, cooperative education programmes). Contributions might, for example, cover topics like:
- Who chooses (traditional) higher education programmes, who chooses vocational education, and who opts for cooperative education programmes? Are there systematic differences in students’ choices between these options, for example due to gender, academic or migration background, the type of entrance qualification, and/or individual competences?
- What determines the choice of subjects in higher education or vocational training?
- Does the type of higher education entrance qualification influence the success in vocational and higher education?
- Are training and/or study decisions revised later on? And if so, when will this be the case, who will be most likely to revise her or his decision, are some decisions more likely to be revised than others, and which alternative paths are taken?
- It is often argued that vocational and tertiary education convey different types of competencies (more specific vs. more general). How do these differences in competence endowments affect degree holders’ labour market chances?
In addition to the focus topic we are also interested in contributions that deal with the link between higher education and the labour market in general. Examples are papers focusing on topics like returns to education, overeducation among holders of tertiary degrees, labour market transitions of university drop-outs, graduates’ placement on the labour market – especially with regard to graduates with different types of degrees (e.g., B.A./M.A), or differences over time resulting from the increase in take-up of university studies.
Field Experiments in Policy Evaluation
The Institute for Employment Research (IAB) and the Labor and Socio-Economic Research Center (LASER) of the University of Erlangen Nuremberg are pleased to announce a workshop on field experiments in policy evaluation. Randomized experiments are the golden standard of causal analysis and have become an important tool in policy evaluations. However, conducting field experiments poses several methodical challenges like external validity, spillover effects, or dynamic selection. The two-day workshop seeks to bring together researchers focusing on policy evaluations using a field experimental design. Studies addressing one of the following fields are particularly welcome:
- Labor economics
- Economics of education
- Health economics
4th Workshop on Spatial Dimensions of the Labour Market
The 4th Workshop on “Spatial Dimensions of the Labour Market” focuses on topics concerning regional labour markets. This year, a special focus is placed on the causes and consequences of agglomeration effects, and on local labour markets. The workshop aims to bring together frontier researchers from the areas of labour economics, regional economics, geography and other related fields. Theoretical, empirical and policy-oriented contributions are welcome.